Middle-grade students have a wealth of ideas about who they are and what they want for their futures. At the same time, they too often find themselves having to reconcile their hopes and dreams with messages about what “good” careers look like, what is possible for them and what it means to be successful.

At this critical stage in students’ development, their future success can be profoundly impacted by how their school approaches career-connected learning and if it is using a coordinated approach that combines academics with awareness, exploration and preparation for postsecondary education and career.

In Boston Public Schools, we have been using a coordinated approach in middle school grades. We use the Massachusetts’ individualized learning plan, known as My Career and Academic Plan (MyCAP), which is both a process and a tool that helps students engage in career and academic planning over several years based on their interests, skills and talents.

We believe this is a breakthrough effort that will provide students, even at this young age, with transformational learning experiences that support self-exploration. Such experiences are especially important for historically marginalized students, including Black and Latino youth, multilingual learners and students with disabilities.

This is a breakthrough effort that will provide students, even at this young age, transformational learning experiences that support self-exploration.

Studies commissioned by the U.S. Department of Labor have concluded that individualized learning plans, usually implemented in high school, represent a “promising practice” for college and career readiness. The next logical step, we felt, was to begin this process earlier in a young person’s development.

Most students don’t even think about careers until well into their high school years; some believe from an early age that their options are limited. The earlier we reach these students, the greater the chance of breaking down barriers and opening their minds to a wealth of options based on a better understanding of themselves — their skills, their interests and their potential.

Related: The path to a career could start in middle school

MyCAP is now available to more than 25,400 Boston students districtwide, including 9,600 students in grades 6-8. With investments at the school and district levels, and support from business and community partners, philanthropy, higher education and the local school improvement organization EdVestors, Boston Public Schools has been able to create a wide variety of offerings for these young students.

The citywide effort to use MyCAP in the middle grades has made Boston a leader in career-connected learning in Massachusetts. We believe that Boston’s approach will provide other districts with an example to replicate.

When used effectively, MyCAP fosters students’ motivation to persist in school, higher attendance, greater clarity about their postsecondary options and understanding of their own interests.

The MyCAP process encourages students to seek out opportunities for building college, career and life skills in high school, including dual enrollment, early college and capstone projects. MyCAP activities also connect students with real-world experiences that can spark interest, elevate strengths and expand their awareness of what they can do after high school, in college and beyond.

For example, students in one eighth grade classroom took the Myers-Briggs indicator assessment to learn more about themselves and their interests. They later reflected on the results and the suggested best-fit college majors and careers for their personality types.

One student who was assessed as “extroverted” had never considered that their outgoing personality could inform a future job or career in fields like sales, real estate and education.

Expanding MyCAP to middle school has been a collective effort, with teachers, counselors and partners all helping design the foundational experiences. Together, with students as our focus, we’ve identified priorities including skill building and goal setting, high school selection and transition and career and academic pathways.

Ensuring that caring adults are prepared to create welcoming environments for all students is an essential component of the plan. Training adults in anti-racist practices that disrupt biased beliefs about which academic pathways and careers are right for certain students supports that goal.

Our coordinated approach has led to trusting relationships between students and adult staff, including counselors, administrators, teachers and those who work with special education and multilingual learners. We’ve also worked with community partners, such as the 3Point Foundation and College Advising Corps.

One result: A school counselor in our district reports that she’s now having more meaningful conversations with families thanks to exploration activities and skill-building experiences like Personal Roadmap, the Naviance Scavenger Hunt and Road Trip Nation videos.

More states, including Kentucky and Rhode Island, are using individualized learning plans in the middle grades, but the momentum needs to keep building.

Districts should realize that positioning middle-grade students as the drivers of their own educational journeys by connecting their course options with their career choices is a worthy investment.

Mary Skipper is superintendent of the Boston Public Schools; Marinell Rousmaniere is president and CEO of EdVestors, a Boston-based nonprofit school improvement organization.

This story about career-connected learning was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s newsletter.

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This week marks National Arts in Education Week, a time for us to highlight the transformative power of the arts in education. Arts education for all students is fundamental to a well-rounded education. The arts provide dimension and perspective, and they help students develop the critical thinking, communication and collaboration skills they will need to succeed in school, work and life. Students who have high-quality arts learning opportunities may be among tomorrow’s great artists, and they also may be among tomorrow’s health care professionals, engineers and civic leaders. No matter the path, arts education provides a way to creative careers of the future.

EdVestors and Boston Public Schools (BPS) began laying the groundwork for this future more than a decade ago with the creation of BPS Arts Expansion, an initiative that has brought arts learning opportunities to 17,000 additional students annually across the entire school district, ensuring all students receive foundational arts learning opportunities. Now, it’s time to build upon this base and increase opportunities to help students put their arts education into action.

Related: OPINION: It’s time to change the conversation around music education to its positive impact on student success

According to the 2016 World Economic Forum report, “The Future of Jobs,” a majority of employers say creativity is one of the most valued qualities they seek in their employees, along with critical-thinking skills and the ability to solve complex problems. In Boston, our creative economy sector alone is projected to grow by 7 percent over the next decade, adding around 1,800 jobs. Going forward, arts education will be vital to building the workforce needed to power the 21st century creative economy, not only here but across the globe. The world will continue to need educators to cultivate creativity in all of our young people and help open avenues to arts opportunities for them — especially those with traditionally the least access — so they may have robust and fulfilling careers.

Increasingly, we’ve seen young people asking for more opportunities to engage in quality work-based learning experiences while they’re in high school via increased learning opportunities in career and technical education. Through design and visual communication, media, graphic design, fashion design, and film & radio broadcasting, our students are developing professional networks and connections to the job market that they might not otherwise have had. Both for-profit and nonprofit organizations are partnering with teachers and supporting students as they build and master artistic and creative skills.

This summer, the Bloomberg Arts Internship program expanded to Boston. In July and August, 25 high school students received a paid eight-week internship at one of 15 arts and cultural institutions that eagerly opened their doors, helping the interns develop an appreciation of the roles that arts and culture play in our city. Interns were also able to build skills such as oral and written communication as well as envision career pathways in creative industries that may be available to their future selves.

Related: COLUMN: Departure of ‘Fame’ high school principal is victory for arts education and student power

Additionally, the Bloomberg Arts Internship and other initiatives like it help address opportunity gaps for students and equity gaps in the local arts and culture workforce. By building pathways of opportunity for our diverse young people, these internships also serve an industry hungry for employees who reflect the city’s diversity.

This kind of authentic on-the-job learning, whether through internships or other opportunities, is a space that the arts naturally occupy. It’s also a place where we can cultivate an interest in learning and mastering new skills, not only to inspire current high school students but also to begin engaging our middle school students in identifying and exploring pathways in creative industries that will continue to evolve and be available in their futures.

An education rich in arts learning opportunities will result in skilled, creative and innovative adults. Extending such opportunities to the workplace will build leaders ready to power the 21st century creative economy.

This story about National Arts in Education Week was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for our newsletter.

Marinell Rousmaniere is the president and CEO of EdVestors, a school improvement organization in Boston.

Myran Parker-Brass is the former executive director for the arts in Boston Public Schools.

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Cities such as Chicago, Los Angeles, and Boston have long recognized the intrinsic value of arts education for children to learn artistic skills and techniques while having the opportunity to express themselves. But it is the importance of improved readiness for success in college, career, and citizenship directly linked with arts education that has led cities like Boston to employ innovative partnerships to increase students’ access to arts.

Research findings have made clear the persistence of strong connections between arts learning in earlier years and overall academic success and pro-social outcomes. A 2009 longitudinal study by UCLA’s James Catterall showed that arts-engaged low-income students are more likely than their non-arts-engaged peers to have attended and done well in college, obtained employment with a future, volunteered in their communities and participated in the political process by voting.

For the past six years, Boston has been ahead of the curve reinvesting in arts education by generating, and sustaining, a collective effort in the city among the public, private, and philanthropic sectors that has been bucking the trend nationally, decades in the making.

Related: Do the arts go hand-in-hand with Common Core?

Since its launch in 2009, Boston Public Schools’ BPS Arts Expansion Initiative has enabled arts education to reach 14,000 more students annually in city schools. This year, nine of 10 students in grades pre-K through eight are receiving weekly arts instruction. Access to any arts instruction for high school students during the school day has more than doubled, from 26 percent to over 60 percent, during the same six-year period.

These changes have come as a result of a concerted effort on the part of the city and its partners, including EdVestors, a nonprofit in Boston, as the convener and anchor partner of the work. Local theaters, museums, nonprofit cultural organizations and other institutions are partnering with schools and creating a lasting bond among school staff, students, their families, and the city’s cultural community.

The combination of the city’s leadership and vision, coordinated private philanthropy with a data-driven agenda, and significant investments in building partnerships and district capacity through increased investments in Boston Public Schools arts teachers and the Boston Public Schools arts department has enabled schools across the district to create time and space for the arts.

The success of Boston Public Schools arts education is underpinned by increased public funding by Boston Public Schools, which now invests over $21 million annually in arts education, hiring 120 additional full time arts teachers. Private philanthropy provides a catalyst and incentive to the increase in public dollars. Together, investments along with grant awards, are paying off in greater student and parent engagement and a richer school climate and educational experience.

In a recent survey of students EdVestors conducted, nearly half of middle and high schools students reported wanting more arts as part of their regular school day. Many respondents stated their belief that their arts education contributed to their future professional and academic success.

Related: Can the arts get students to college?

Similarly, a poll of parents conducted last year, revealed strong support for arts education among parents in Boston Public Schools. Boston Public Schools parents believe arts education keeps their children engaged in school and helps improve academic performance. In addition, schools that offer the arts are viewed as more desirable by parents, with 60 percent of parents responding that the arts are a “very important” component of a good school.

Mayor Marty Walsh and the city’s newly named superintendent Dr. Tommy Chang, have a solid foundation to build on this success to ensure all BPS students enjoy the benefits of arts education.  In a city with a rich arts and cultural heritage and a future dependent on creative citizens, access to arts learning is vital. City leaders know this matters not only to the future of the city, but to the parents and students present today in their schools.

The BPS Arts Expansion Initiative has received national recognition, from the National Endowment for the Arts. This long-standing collaborative approach in Boston is gathering steam in other parts of the country as well. Chicago, New York City, Seattle, and Los Angeles are also providing examples for how to move this important agenda in different city contexts. What remains true throughout the country is that a collective approach to our children’s education is critical in achieving success.

Marinell Rousmaniere is the senior vice president for strategic initiatives at EdVestors, a school change organization focused on accelerating improvement in urban schools.

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